


Business, Pleasure

by littlerhymes



Category: To the Hilt - Dick Francis
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 04:28:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2837960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlerhymes/pseuds/littlerhymes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Al asks Chris to sit for a portrait.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Business, Pleasure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greenet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenet/gifts).



> Thank you to my beta reader, SQ (proteinscollide)!

"Are you free next weekend to come up to the bothy? For the sittings, you know?" 

Chris blinks. The phone call is not exactly unexpected - the last time they'd met up for a drink on one of Al's occasional visits to town, Al had impulsively said, _You should sit for me. We'll do a series, Youngs and Uttleys._ Unthinking, a little drunk, he'd agreed. But he hadn't thought anything would actually come of it.

"Hopefully," he says, cautiously, because in this line of work you never know. "How long do you think it'll take?"

"Just for a few days to get some sketches, I think, if you have the time," Al says breezily. "Bring all your disguises, will you? That would be helpful."

Absently Chris says yes and notes down the directions and hangs up and stares at the phone until it rings again. 

"Young and Uttley, Private Investigators," Chris says automatically, in a bored voice, his pen already hovering over his notepad. Business goes on. It always does.

Miracle of miracles, Friday arrives and no unexpected jobs have cropped up. Just to make sure, Chris sets his phone to direct to voicemail until Monday. When he arrives at the bothy on Friday night, Al has a roast dinner and a bottle of good red wine already waiting. It's all so welcoming and inviting that he has to remind himself, as he has done ever since Al's phone call, that this isn't purely social, that the purpose of this weekend is business for Al. And even if it weren't, well...

Over the meal they talk, just as they always do, and like every other time it's easy between them, as though they've known each for far longer than just a year. He cracks a joke and Al throws his head back laughing, his expression open and bright; and for a moment Chris lets himself feel a little regret.

'Friends for life' - that's how Al put it after the case wrapped up. Back then it had seemed like a promise. Now, it's more like a boundary, a wall he can peer over and never quite cross. 

The next morning, the sittings begin. 

He's brought along all his disguises, as requested. Over the course of the day he tries them on and sheds them in turn as Al takes quick, rough sketches of each: the businessman, the PE teacher, the punk, the secretary, the real estate agent… 

"These won't be too identifying, will they?" Chris says suddenly, still dressed up as the real estate agent, blonde and full-figured with a string of fat pearls around his throat. He abruptly drops his pose. "This is my livelihood, you know? Can't go around letting all the rabbits out of the bag at once." 

"I won't," Al says, smiling over his sketchpad and easel. "I'm trying to capture how differently you stand and hold yourself in each disguise, more than what you're wearing or how your face looks exactly. You won't be that recognisable, I promise." Then he makes a sound and gets up from the easel. "Hold on."

Al puts his pencils down and comes over to reposition him. His hands are gentle and firm on Chris' wrists, then his shoulders, then his hips - turning Chris this way and that until he has the pose again, and the light from the window hits him just right. 

It's nothing he hasn't done to Chris a dozen times that day already, but just like every other time Chris finds his heart racing, his colour rising, his mind fixating on tiny details like the brightness of his eyes and the rich colour of his mouth. He thinks, for the dozenth time, that he can't stand for Al to touch him even one more time; and simultaneously that all he wants is for Al to keep touching him.

"Nearly done," Al says, oblivious as ever, pushing back a stray blonde curl that's fallen over Chris' forehead.

Or maybe not so oblivious. Because this time he doesn't move away and his hand stays just where it is, on the side of Chris' face. He looks into Chris' eyes, still rimmed with fake lashes, and leans in to kiss him softly on the mouth.

Chris kisses him right back.

They manage to stumble out of the studio and to the bedroom, with Al shedding both shirt and trousers, and Chris his high heels and wig, somewhere along the way. When they get to the bed, Al fumblingly unzips Chris' skirt and rips open his blouse. Chris unhooks his bra and the fake breasts pop out - they're both startled into laughing, before Al picks them up and chucks them over his shoulder. 

Chris starts to unfasten the pearls as well, but Al stops him, catching him by the wrists and pressing him down into the mattress. "Leave them on," he says, his voice husky.

Afterwards, they lie together beneath the covers, arms around one another as though they've been doing this for weeks, months, years...

"I'll have to wash my face off," Chris says, "I'm getting make-up all over your pillows. And I think those are my false lashes," he says, pulling them out from where they've caught in Al's hair.

"Okay," Al says, but his arm tightens around Chris' waist and neither of them makes a move to get up.

"Was this your plan all along?" Chris says. "Because if it was, it's pretty clever."

Al laughs. "Not really," he says. "Though it did cross my mind that sittings would be a good excuse to invite you up here."

"Aha, so it was a plan," Chris says. After a moment, he adds, "I wish I didn't have to go back tomorrow."

"Me too," Al says quietly. They still have their own lives to lead, business to take care of, no matter how perfectly they fit together in this moment. "But I really do want to finish this series of portraits. So you'll just have to come back - quite regularly, I imagine, if I want to make any sort of decent progress."

"Oh yes," Chris says. "Wouldn't want you to fall behind schedule."

"And sometimes," Al suggests, "I can visit you." 

"I'd like that a lot," Chris says, smiling. "Maybe we can go on a stake-out together. I'll fix up a disguise for you - one with a long wig and stilettos, maybe, or do you prefer leather and chains?"

"Whatever you want," Al says simply, "however you want me."

When he can catch his breath again, Chris twines their hands together. "Actually," he says, "actually, I think I'll take you just as you are."


End file.
